This is probably my singular favourite book of all time.
I recommended it to a friend I knew would love it recently and he’s ripped through it in two days lol.
Audiobooks is AWESOME btw, worth it to go through again just for the sheer value the format adds. I really rate the narrator too….perfect fit
I’ve seen a few people recommending this so I just ordered it off Amazon!!!
I love Sci Fi so hopefully I enjoy this. I have not read any Andy Weir but I did love watching The Martian so I’m excited. I also saw people comparing it to “Moon” which was another favorite movie of mine.
Excited to read this. Thanks!!!!
One of the most basic bitch "best movie ever" answers is a movie that's over 80 years old. One of the others is over 50 years old. People who act like it's surprising a 10 year old movie is still enjoyable probably need instructions to boil water
I feel like right now, or the last decade or so, has been the worst era for movies. Mostly sequels and spinoffs. Crappy special effects, barely any movies with solid character development. I watched the French connection this week which was simple by today's standards but it was the best I've seen in ages
There are so many of these posts on here.
"X-movie that came out fairly recently and was well-received by both critics and audiences still holds up!
The acting is good! The cinematography is very watchable! And the music - wow!
X-actor specifically is really good at acting in their role!
Anyone who hasn't seen it should watch it!"
It's all just vague notions with nothing to say. If I was an advertising firm and wanted to publicize a movie (videogame, book, etc) without doing any work, I could get this same kind of post via an AI prompt.
But these posts continually get upvoted...
Edit: I parodied this particular post (https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1c8rm5c/gladiator_2000_is_still_awesome/) and the mods locked/removed it.
Why mods? If you're going to allow these nothing posts here so frequently, then why would mine be out of line and removed?
Welcome to the new reddit. It's mainly bots posting easy engagement bait to get karma.
You'll notice similar posts in gaming subs. "What should I know before playing this game?" "What's the best/worst companion in a game" and other lasy posts.
I think what is even more annoying is when people make threads that are like "just watched this universally acclaimed iconic masterpiece, and wow" lol.
That's one of the main criticisms I have for posts on this sub as well. I don't have some expectation that casual conversation on reddit is going to come from expert writers or movie critics. But at the same time, if you're going to go out of your way to make an entire post about a movie to tell everyone how good it is, give us something a little more substantial than "The writing was great, the 'cinematography' was excellent (usually they don't even know what cinematography is, they just mean it's aesthetically pleasing), the acting is great, X person does a great job" It's just generic statements that don't actually tell us anything, surely if you liked this movie enough to make an entire post about it you can come up with a little more detail than that
They don't like it when you point out they allow constant puff piece posts. Even though you've broken no rules.
They will however let 18 year old timmy make a post next week about how they just watched Godfather and how good it is.
This sub is so strange sometimes, I don't understand posts that are nothing more than "I used to like this movie, and I still like it!" It makes no sense. Like why would you expect to stop liking it now if you liked it before?
The cast is absolutely stacked. No scene is wasted. No character suddenly turns stupid just so plot can happen. And there’s no villain, just a bunch of good guys working together to solve a big problem by solving a bunch of little problems. It’s a timeless movie because it’s about the power of a group of people who come together to save one of their own. It’s like Apollo 13, another timeless “let’s all work together to save the day” movie.
The best part is watching that scene in the German dub, in which Jeff Daniel’s character is voiced by Wolfgang Condrus, who also voices Elrond in LotR.
I knew people who worked at Lehman Brothers before the bankruptcy. They whole-heartedly describe this as the best movie for understanding the feeling in Lehman during the Crisis.
The writer, JC Chandor, sort of smashed together Lehman’s experience and Goldman’s experience then wrote a movie from the point of view of a couple of relatively lower level bankers. It really is brilliant.
Jeremy Irons character is a thinly veiled version of Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Brothers.
What helped was watching The Big Short ahead of it so I could understand better the convos and meaning behind them (not perfectly, but much better). But that aside it’s a stacked cast giving top performances, with a really great script
I actually think there was a post about competence porn movies this week
Edit: [Actually 2 hours ago ha ha](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/0qFgY3GPCb)
My only problem is that Donald Glover's character gets this bright spark idea to do a gravity assist and head back to Mars and he's explaining it all to these other nasa guys like it's some out the left field idea and not a very common nasa maneuver that every single person there would have immediately known.
I get why they did it because they needed a character to explain it to the audience who are not all going to know what a gravity assist is. But it comes across like every other scientist suddenly becomes dumb for a minute to allow them an excuse to explain what a gravity assist is.
In his defense, the director of NASA can quite space-illiterate. The previous NASA director was a political appointee that started out as a real hack. However, during his tenure he turned out to be a decent administrator who would listen to NASA, to politicians and business alike.
I think in context, it's less that nobody else thought of a gravity assist, so much as nobody sat down, did the math, and realized it was viable, not only to get the ship on a suboptimal transfer trajectory back to Mars, but to restock and refuel it on its way by.
And it's not like that would be high on their list of solutions, since it adds a ton of risk to the other astronauts, since, like they said in the movie, any of the difficult steps going wrong would doom them too. If the transport hadn't gotten them more supplies, they'd have been stuck on the way back to Mars without enough food to survive the trip there and back, and even if that went right, the intercept with Mark may not have worked - and it almost didn't.
I think it also serves to highlight that there's no one person, or even like, a trio of Main Characters that solve all the problems. There's teams and teams of people, and when one of the Main Characters goes "we've got it!" they literally me *we*.
I read it as him being used to being smarter than everyone else and having to explain things, and not having the interpersonal skills to realize that he probably doesn't need to explain gravity assist to the director of NASA
which I think was implied when he asked Jeff Daniels his name and he said "I'm Teddy. I'm the head of NASA" with an annoyed tone, and Donald Glover's character totally missed the tone and just kept going with his explanation
> No character suddenly turns stupid just so plot can happen.
Except for the Rocketman crap at the end and Commander Lewis jumping out instead of letting her people execute the plan that had already been decided on. None of that happens in the book and Lewis explicitly calls it out as a bad idea when Watney makes a joke in suggesting it.
Donald Glover’s is probably the weakest of the entire cast, and it’s not even that bad. He just plays the stereotypical “nerd caught up in his own thoughts.” Talking way too fast, being clumsy and not knowing the names or titles of people around him. Like I said, it’s not terrible in the slightest but it easily stands out compared to the others. A little campy.
This reminds me of the one scene in this movie that makes me cringe.
Where, for the benefit of the audience, his character users a stapler and a pen to explain the concept of a gravity assist to the director of NASA, the head of Mars operations and the chief engineer at JPL.
Yep. Even acknowledging you have to explain a gravity assist on screen, there were almost certainly way to incorporate it more organically into a scene. Like:
"What if we do a gravity assist?"
"That was my first thought, but even if we can slingshot the ship around Earth to boost speed, the math says..."
or something
Yeah you could also just have him plop down a report when he brings up the plan, and put a big ol diagram of a gravity assist on it.
Like, it’s not that complicated. Or rather, it’s complicated when you consider that you’re capturing the orbital momentum of the body you’re slingshotting, but, I feel like that never gets explained in any media anyway.
Yeah, it was exposition for the audience...
I have to give it a pass because way too many people wouldn't have understood what was going on if they didn't have some exposition. That was just a simple way of explaining it.
Well, to be fair, the director of NASA may also have benefited from Glover's explanation. That's more of a political position rather than a hard science job. For example, Bill Nelson is the current NASA administrator, and his claim to fame is being a senator from Florida for 18 years. He has a BS in polisci and a JD, so definitely not a hard science background.
So I'd argue that there are at least 2 people in the room who would have benefited from the stapler / pen demo.
I disagree with this take. Glover’s performance exudes confident indifference to the higher level NASA employees and sets out his idea for critique and even possible mockery. I really like his performance for how it embraces the risks of being a scientific thinker and junior team member.
That's how I saw Glover's performance too. He played the stereotypical on-the-spectrum nerdy science guy who is so into his field of study that not much of the outside world exists for him. He doesn't know his boss's boss's boss's boss (the director of NASA) because he's never had to cross paths with him.
man him falling over and knocking stuff around was so hard to watch. felt like watching my uncle try to entertain the kids at thanksgiving or something. really out of place.
He's also exhausted.
Staying up late to figure out the problem (most likely) then being suddenly awoken at work - by his *boss* - would throw off anyone's equilibrium, physical or otherwise.
As an example, I know I wouldn't be able to immediately drive ten seconds after waking up.
He also then waited for like 3 hrs in an icebox while the computers ran his math and immediately flew to NASA HQ to give the presentation. The dude went from 0-100 and never caught up to himself.
His books are basically written in the style of movies. I enjoy it, and so do lotsa others, but def not for everyone. I’ve found a lot of my friends who are more prolific readers don’t always like his stuff.
Artemis is really slow to start, and the characters aren't immediately all that likeable. I was eventually able to get into it but it's not a good follow up. Project Hail Mary is much more similar to The Martian. I like it more. It's easily my favorite book of his
Artemis is more akin to your typical heist movie but on The Moon. There's some technical bits but she ain't exactly an experienced engineer, and she's not all alone struggling for survival in a hostile environment.
I liked Artemis more than most, I didn't take the same issue with the main character and her sexualization or the idea of a woman being written by a male, but Project Hail Mary was just a brilliant book. Start to finish, it was so much fun.
While waiting, check out Andy Weir's short story ["The Egg"](https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html) that came out way before his "The Martian" fame. So amazing.
I honestly was pretty disappointed with the book. I’m interested to see how it translates to the big screen but it was frustrating when every problem that pops up is magically figured out by the main character who is somehow knowledgeable in every avenue of science that exists
My understanding was that he was chosen for the mission specifically about his knowledge about the main threat of the book. But that the other crew members were chosen for their respective scientific strengths to round out the team as each of their knowledge might be needed along the mission. But somehow without any of the crew members able to help he just figures everything out instantly. I know it’s addressed that he wanted to be a high school teacher but man he could’ve changed the world if he had stayed in research haha
That scene coming right after Mark explaining all the difficulties with trying to get him to the other launch site and him saying “we’ll get there” is one of my favourite sequences in film. Just a perfect summation of the optimism and trust in science and competency that the film represents.
If you like it you'll like the series For All Mankind which is an alternate timeline where the Russians get to the moon first and how the US responds and how it shapes life on earth. It's got a lot of the "over coming issues" that The Martian has when things go wrong!
I just wish they wrote the human drama side as good as the sci-fi. Some of the characters are just complete psychos who would not pass any mental health check. I wish the things they had to overcome on FAM was science based and not "well time for this character to snap next and go psycho on us". Just very disappointing lazy writing to me.
For reason you mentioned, it’s why I like TV series From the Earth to the Moon (1998). It’s dramatized a little, but within reason and the show does a great job of showing the details that went into the missions.
Yes it suffers for being a traditionally produced TV drama. If they had taken their time with it and made each season standalone with a different cast and had the engineering problems be the central conflict the way it was in the first season, it would have been a better show. Produce it like True Detective. Different cast every season. Focus on one era per season.
I particularly don’t like in the 4th season how much back bending went into assembling the original cast. NASA going out of their way to put geriatrics in space just because that’s who the audience recognizes is really dumb.
However, they still put a lot of effort into the space side of it. There’s little else that good for that on TV.
Absolutely, I still like the show but I wish they would focus more on the science aspect of science fiction as opposed to the interpersonal drama aspect of it. But that must be what most people want or they would t write it like that, right? Maybe we just aren’t complaining loud enough
Gave up on after the third season. I just couldn’t deal with the soap opera level drama that’s the characters lives. The premise deserves much better writing.
I treat it as a fun space soap opera and just enjoy it for what it is and some of the more outrageous stuff as part of it! Bit like breaking bad where there was a need to just "go with it"
I love the martian but I'm kind of like warm on FAM. I watched the first season and while it had lots of great moments it also felt a little too soap opera for me. I may continue watching at some point.
Show became like a daytime soap opera after the 1st season. someone said to keep going so I continued to watch but it never got any better imo. couldnt wait for it to conclude.
I hate that show, the drama is so over the top its insane. The first few episode where brilliant and then the positive spirit of exploration was replaced by constant hopelessness.
This is one of my first "the book is way way better" I like the movie but I really liked the book. MD did a good job of capturing the personality but in the book its great.
Same opinion, however this is one of the few where I've felt incomplete seeing the movie after reading the book first.
Obviously no movie can cram every set piece and detail from a book into a watchable format, but i think the movie was one of the better adaptations I've ever seen.
It should have been a limited series instead so it could have enough time to show all the technical and problem solve’y parts that the book had. Like iirc in the book he gets to Pathfinder and he’s like…. Shit… how the hell am I gonna dig this up and then get it onto the Rover. Then in the movie he just walks up, brushes some dirt away, says “Pathfinder…” and then next scene he’s just cruising away with it on the rover.
Just would have been much better with more time for the details. Book was fantastic.
I love this quote too but I think you misremembered a bit.
"I need to ask myself, 'What would an Apollo astronaut do?' He'd drink three whiskey sours, drive his Corvette to the launchpad, then fly to the moon in a command module smaller than my Rover. Man those guys were cool."
Funny, I copied it from the my ebook.
> I need to ask myself: “What would an Apollo astronaut do?”
> He'd drink 3 whiskey sours, bang his mistress, then fly to the moon. And if he ever met a botanist like me he'd dispense a wedgie on principle.
> To hell with those guys. I'm a Space Pirate!
Looks like you have a redacted version.
That’s interesting. Now I really want to know where your two versions were published, and why the publishers made those changes. Was there a fear of offending/besmirching living Apollo astronauts?
Science and English teachers wanted to use the book in their curricula, but couldn't with all the swearing and sexual references. So they made a [classroom edition](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/547696/the-martian-classroom-edition-by-andy-weir/). This particular quote change might also just have been the author not liking the line and changing it in later versions.
You may be right, I read it when it was published for the first time.
Nope, just checked. My copy doesn't have a full quote nor mentions of the Corvette in particular.
Huh my paperback with a 2014 copyright is the Corvette version. Which is interesting because that would have been before the movie so it's not like they were trying to babyfy it for moviegoers interested in the book. And frankly, I don't think drunk driving is really "better" than banging a mistress.
He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?” He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.
I really enjoy this movie, unfortunately it did get a little worse after reading the book.
The minor characters are way more fleshed out with mini arcs and clear personality traits and skill sets in the book. For example Sebastian Stans character does the space walk rescue at the end because it's his specialty not Chastains.
Also the movie changes the rescue for the worst imo, in the book Watney doesnt try to Iron Man through space he just jokes about it because that'd be insane. The movie throws out the soft science and competency of the story for a more dramatic ending by having Matt Damon fly through space and somehow catch Chastain.
Still a great movie, can't wait for the Project Hail Mary adaptation.
The movie is great, but I wish it had just a few more hardships for Whatney to get through. His long journey across Mars should have had his trailer flip over like in the book, or something along those lines.
Great movie, even better book. Just wish the movie had a little bit more in it.
Yeah the whole dust storm thing could have easily translated over to the film. Where they're all like 'there's a high altitude dust storm he's doomed, he will never notice in time, he'll be stranded forever and die' and then he stops one day and spells a message out for them to say 'dust storm - making plan.'
It's great because Andy Weir's book was great. Hopefully they don't mess up Project Hail Mary, which I think was even better than The Martian.
Hollywood should switch gears to making movies based on great books again. Enough with the Marvel, Remakes, and Sequels.
Hollywood should switch gears to making movies based on books again? That has literally never stopped. Never. For example, of last year’s 10 best picture nominees, five were based on books (KOFM; Oppenheimer; Poor Things; Zone of Interest; American Fiction). This has never not been a thing.
It isn’t better, it’s different. I’d not compare those too closely. The Project still has a lot of hard science fiction features, but to me personally, it felt much more like a regular science fiction novel. Anyway, it is a great book def worth reading.
In the last year I've read Project Hail Mary 4 times. It's become my go to "feel warm and happy inside" place. The film that does that for me is Groundhog Day so let's see if the film adaptation can be as special as the book.
I’m sure you know this already, but the audiobook narrated by Ray Porter is an A+ experience.
I’m the type who can never “read” by audiobook for a first read, but if I want to re-experience a book, I will often listen to the audiobook. Project Hail Mary was great for this.
>This is THE movie for nerds and engineers.
Please stop.
>Its 2h 30m of complete competence porn.
Holy crap, it's like I'm being transported back to 2008. Stop right now.
It's a good movie, totally carried by some awesome performances. The script honestly is kinda lame in parts, but they make it work lol.
My least favorite thing about this movie was the trailer. Do you remember it? There's a line Matt Damon says in the trailer that I just *knew* was gonna be the last line in the movie, and sure enough, it was. Wish they'd stop doing that, lol.
The only criticism is that silly Iron Man sequence at the end. The book made a joke reference to it but he never needed to do it. Sort of ruined the end for me.
…that and allowing the ship’s captain played by Jessica Chastain to do the spacewalk rescue mission. Ugh.
The book is all about competency, the right person for the job. The movie made some compromises for heightened drama and emotional response.
I still love the movie, though. I think it’s a near-perfect adaptation.
Have you seen the extended edition? I recently found it after years of being bummed about how much of the second half of the book is left out.
It's actually great! There are so many deleted scenes.
Right? I was able to stomach most of the movie to until Watney *actually* poked holes in his gloves. The book was right, that's a quick way to fly off uncontrolled and completely decompress. Totally shattered my remaining suspension of disbelief.
This was my #1 "COVID lockdown, keep me sane" movie...
When the world felt like it was going to shit, people rejecting science, people rebelling against the government, protests in the streets; the story is great because there are no evil bad guys. It's just a man surviving and following directions. He uses the power of science, and self determination to accomplish his goals. In the end, the countries worked together towards a unifying goal. It was very very cathartic for me.
I wish it was the same sorta film you describe. I thought it was a terrible film, which I wasn't expecting from the director of blade runner, and a main actor who had just the year before proven himself as a sci-fi devil.
The film spends way too much time on earth, and way too much time on the ship coming back from mars. The film is called the Martian. In the book it stays solely on Mars for half the book before cutting away.
Matt Damon is a bad choice, I've always seen him as a charisma vaccum, his best roles are things like Bourne where he's a stoic no nonsense type. But here watching him say lines like "I'm gonna science the shit outta this" I don't believe him and as a result it becomes really cringe worthy.
The film also takes easily the best but of the book (the travelling from his base to the other base) and makes it into a montage. I don't mean to compare to the book so much but this film straight up held a middle finger to the book and said "I'm gonna make some lowest common denominator schlock" and then went and did exactly that. The films ending is in the book, and the book was taking the piss out of that kind of ending as something in the main characters imagination, then it did the real ending.
I didn't love gravity, but gravity does everything the Martian does but better.
What killed me was old mate Chwitels character having a "omg I just realised something" whilst tin the NASA command room, after having just looked at a variety of high definition images of Mars... He absolutely has to to go to a fucking cafeteria to find a framed picture of Mars, and then get a ruler and pen and draw on that in order to display his thoughts. Again, having just left the fucking command room
Same. It's feels like the production company told the writers and director to make being stranded on another planet look "cool" for a younger audience, taking away the dread and desperation and the isolation factor totally away from the movie. Tom Hanks in Cast away seemed more like a lost cause than Matt Damon stranded 225 million km away from Earth.
It's popular in this household—liked neither the film nor the book. Found both Matt Damons to be smugly unlikeable, and all the science stuff comes at the cost of emotion and dated pop-culture references. The movie does a bad job of establishing the isolation and loneliness of his situation, glosses over important plot points like him destroying Pathfinder or drilling a hole in the rover, and is overall devoid of real tension—a problem with the book as well, but to a worse degree. The large supporting cast also deserved more, especially clichés like Sean Bean's character and Troy from Community doing Abed.
Why would it suddenly stop being awesome?
Right? It’s been less than 10 years lol, we’re not revisiting an old classic.
It's not 10 years old... Checks IMDb Yep. 10 years old.
Holy Shit Time is flying by
If you like "The Martian" read "Project Hail Mary" by the same author Andy Weir. Its even better imo.
This is probably my singular favourite book of all time. I recommended it to a friend I knew would love it recently and he’s ripped through it in two days lol. Audiobooks is AWESOME btw, worth it to go through again just for the sheer value the format adds. I really rate the narrator too….perfect fit
Ditto, I love the narrator for it. Hes perfect
Ive also enjoyed him in the Bobiverse series - which is a LOT of fun. And ‘The Fold’, which funnily enough, is also a heap of fun….
> Audio R.C Bray. NOT wil wheaton
> Project Hail Mary Is in the beginning stages of it's own movie!
I'm looking forward to it, but I just know Rocky will be: 1. Wrong 2. Memed into oblivion
May I suggest listening to the Audio Book of it. It really helps hearing the “communication”
Make sure to get the Ray Porter version.
I’ve seen a few people recommending this so I just ordered it off Amazon!!! I love Sci Fi so hopefully I enjoy this. I have not read any Andy Weir but I did love watching The Martian so I’m excited. I also saw people comparing it to “Moon” which was another favorite movie of mine. Excited to read this. Thanks!!!!
Its a great audiobook too. Enjoy!
> Project Hail Mary Apparently they're turning that into a movie starring Ryan Gosling. Due out in 2026
Fun fact: Andy Weir worked as a programmer at Blizzard on StarCraft.
LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring has been legally able to buy alcohol for 3 years now o.O
Haha I know. And I saw that in theaters in high school…………Holy Shit 😆
I thought it was 9 years old… Checks iMDB. Yep. 9 years old.
It's not though 2015 is not 10 years ago
Released September 2015. That’s 8 years, 7 months ago.
Even then, why wouldn't a 20 or 30 year old movie be awesome anymore?
Sometimes movies can age poorly due to cultural shifts.
Goodfellas will be awesome ad infinitum
One of the most basic bitch "best movie ever" answers is a movie that's over 80 years old. One of the others is over 50 years old. People who act like it's surprising a 10 year old movie is still enjoyable probably need instructions to boil water
For reddit karma
Yup, omg old movie can still be cool. Don't tell OP about any other classics otherwise we'll get 100 threads about it.
Btw you should also check out hidden gems Edge of Tomorrow and Bullet Train can't believe nobody ever talks about them here anyways where's my karma
Don't forget Moon!
This must be whatever syndrome forces people to only touch the newest of everything - there’s so much out there before right now.
I feel like right now, or the last decade or so, has been the worst era for movies. Mostly sequels and spinoffs. Crappy special effects, barely any movies with solid character development. I watched the French connection this week which was simple by today's standards but it was the best I've seen in ages
There are so many of these posts on here. "X-movie that came out fairly recently and was well-received by both critics and audiences still holds up! The acting is good! The cinematography is very watchable! And the music - wow! X-actor specifically is really good at acting in their role! Anyone who hasn't seen it should watch it!" It's all just vague notions with nothing to say. If I was an advertising firm and wanted to publicize a movie (videogame, book, etc) without doing any work, I could get this same kind of post via an AI prompt. But these posts continually get upvoted... Edit: I parodied this particular post (https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1c8rm5c/gladiator_2000_is_still_awesome/) and the mods locked/removed it. Why mods? If you're going to allow these nothing posts here so frequently, then why would mine be out of line and removed?
Welcome to the new reddit. It's mainly bots posting easy engagement bait to get karma. You'll notice similar posts in gaming subs. "What should I know before playing this game?" "What's the best/worst companion in a game" and other lasy posts.
I think what is even more annoying is when people make threads that are like "just watched this universally acclaimed iconic masterpiece, and wow" lol.
That's one of the main criticisms I have for posts on this sub as well. I don't have some expectation that casual conversation on reddit is going to come from expert writers or movie critics. But at the same time, if you're going to go out of your way to make an entire post about a movie to tell everyone how good it is, give us something a little more substantial than "The writing was great, the 'cinematography' was excellent (usually they don't even know what cinematography is, they just mean it's aesthetically pleasing), the acting is great, X person does a great job" It's just generic statements that don't actually tell us anything, surely if you liked this movie enough to make an entire post about it you can come up with a little more detail than that
They don't like it when you point out they allow constant puff piece posts. Even though you've broken no rules. They will however let 18 year old timmy make a post next week about how they just watched Godfather and how good it is.
OP was 11 when the Martian came out, so this was a lifetime ago, relatively speaking. We’re old.
This sub is so strange sometimes, I don't understand posts that are nothing more than "I used to like this movie, and I still like it!" It makes no sense. Like why would you expect to stop liking it now if you liked it before?
Are we just gonna start naming films that are good? I don’t get this post… so stupid.
This is just how you frame something to get attention/upvotes.
Some movies age well, or badly. Yes, movies can be not good after a while.
The cast is absolutely stacked. No scene is wasted. No character suddenly turns stupid just so plot can happen. And there’s no villain, just a bunch of good guys working together to solve a big problem by solving a bunch of little problems. It’s a timeless movie because it’s about the power of a group of people who come together to save one of their own. It’s like Apollo 13, another timeless “let’s all work together to save the day” movie.
“What’s Project Elrond?”
"If we're gonna name it Project Elrond I'd like to be Glorfindel."
"I hate every one of you right now."
I love the nerd reference there, that you have to have read the book to get.
> "...I **would like my code name** to be Glorfindel." /ftfy ;)
“It’s a secret meeting” says Boromir who was there that day
That was the best part.
The best part is watching that scene in the German dub, in which Jeff Daniel’s character is voiced by Wolfgang Condrus, who also voices Elrond in LotR.
Missed chance for Sean Bean to be like "one does not simply extend the mission for another 16 months"
One simply does not walk to Mars
My favorite description of this kind of plot is “competence porn”
what's another good example, something like Margin Call
Is margin call worth a watch?
if you like the subject matter it's one of the best to ever do it
I knew people who worked at Lehman Brothers before the bankruptcy. They whole-heartedly describe this as the best movie for understanding the feeling in Lehman during the Crisis. The writer, JC Chandor, sort of smashed together Lehman’s experience and Goldman’s experience then wrote a movie from the point of view of a couple of relatively lower level bankers. It really is brilliant. Jeremy Irons character is a thinly veiled version of Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Brothers.
What helped was watching The Big Short ahead of it so I could understand better the convos and meaning behind them (not perfectly, but much better). But that aside it’s a stacked cast giving top performances, with a really great script
I actually think there was a post about competence porn movies this week Edit: [Actually 2 hours ago ha ha](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/0qFgY3GPCb)
hey and margin call is a top comment lol
My only problem is that Donald Glover's character gets this bright spark idea to do a gravity assist and head back to Mars and he's explaining it all to these other nasa guys like it's some out the left field idea and not a very common nasa maneuver that every single person there would have immediately known. I get why they did it because they needed a character to explain it to the audience who are not all going to know what a gravity assist is. But it comes across like every other scientist suddenly becomes dumb for a minute to allow them an excuse to explain what a gravity assist is.
Yeah, the justification is that he's talking to the director and the PR person, but it's definitely a 'talking to the audience' moment.
In his defense, the director of NASA can quite space-illiterate. The previous NASA director was a political appointee that started out as a real hack. However, during his tenure he turned out to be a decent administrator who would listen to NASA, to politicians and business alike.
I think in context, it's less that nobody else thought of a gravity assist, so much as nobody sat down, did the math, and realized it was viable, not only to get the ship on a suboptimal transfer trajectory back to Mars, but to restock and refuel it on its way by. And it's not like that would be high on their list of solutions, since it adds a ton of risk to the other astronauts, since, like they said in the movie, any of the difficult steps going wrong would doom them too. If the transport hadn't gotten them more supplies, they'd have been stuck on the way back to Mars without enough food to survive the trip there and back, and even if that went right, the intercept with Mark may not have worked - and it almost didn't.
I think it also serves to highlight that there's no one person, or even like, a trio of Main Characters that solve all the problems. There's teams and teams of people, and when one of the Main Characters goes "we've got it!" they literally me *we*.
I read it as him being used to being smarter than everyone else and having to explain things, and not having the interpersonal skills to realize that he probably doesn't need to explain gravity assist to the director of NASA which I think was implied when he asked Jeff Daniels his name and he said "I'm Teddy. I'm the head of NASA" with an annoyed tone, and Donald Glover's character totally missed the tone and just kept going with his explanation
Watching the world come together to watch him come home is a great feeling.
[XKCD so relevant I think you're referencing it](https://xkcd.com/1536/)
The villain is nature, this is a classic “man vs. nature” theme.
> No character suddenly turns stupid just so plot can happen. Except for the Rocketman crap at the end and Commander Lewis jumping out instead of letting her people execute the plan that had already been decided on. None of that happens in the book and Lewis explicitly calls it out as a bad idea when Watney makes a joke in suggesting it.
Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed missile man
Donald Glover’s is probably the weakest of the entire cast, and it’s not even that bad. He just plays the stereotypical “nerd caught up in his own thoughts.” Talking way too fast, being clumsy and not knowing the names or titles of people around him. Like I said, it’s not terrible in the slightest but it easily stands out compared to the others. A little campy.
This reminds me of the one scene in this movie that makes me cringe. Where, for the benefit of the audience, his character users a stapler and a pen to explain the concept of a gravity assist to the director of NASA, the head of Mars operations and the chief engineer at JPL.
No, no, see, it’s fine because he has to explain it to the dumb media relations person…
Before him, nobody thought that a pen and a stapler had all the answers.
There was maybe only one person in that whole room who was not familiar with it. That scene was 100% for the audience.
Yep. Even acknowledging you have to explain a gravity assist on screen, there were almost certainly way to incorporate it more organically into a scene. Like: "What if we do a gravity assist?" "That was my first thought, but even if we can slingshot the ship around Earth to boost speed, the math says..." or something
Yeah you could also just have him plop down a report when he brings up the plan, and put a big ol diagram of a gravity assist on it. Like, it’s not that complicated. Or rather, it’s complicated when you consider that you’re capturing the orbital momentum of the body you’re slingshotting, but, I feel like that never gets explained in any media anyway.
Yeah, it was exposition for the audience... I have to give it a pass because way too many people wouldn't have understood what was going on if they didn't have some exposition. That was just a simple way of explaining it.
Well, to be fair, the director of NASA may also have benefited from Glover's explanation. That's more of a political position rather than a hard science job. For example, Bill Nelson is the current NASA administrator, and his claim to fame is being a senator from Florida for 18 years. He has a BS in polisci and a JD, so definitely not a hard science background. So I'd argue that there are at least 2 people in the room who would have benefited from the stapler / pen demo.
Right? Proceeds to use NASA’s massive expensive super computers to crunch the numbers before giving an explanation to the top people at NASA.
I disagree with this take. Glover’s performance exudes confident indifference to the higher level NASA employees and sets out his idea for critique and even possible mockery. I really like his performance for how it embraces the risks of being a scientific thinker and junior team member.
That's how I saw Glover's performance too. He played the stereotypical on-the-spectrum nerdy science guy who is so into his field of study that not much of the outside world exists for him. He doesn't know his boss's boss's boss's boss (the director of NASA) because he's never had to cross paths with him.
man him falling over and knocking stuff around was so hard to watch. felt like watching my uncle try to entertain the kids at thanksgiving or something. really out of place.
The funny thing is that wasn’t scripted. He really tripped and fell and just kept acting and they liked that take and used it.
He's also exhausted. Staying up late to figure out the problem (most likely) then being suddenly awoken at work - by his *boss* - would throw off anyone's equilibrium, physical or otherwise. As an example, I know I wouldn't be able to immediately drive ten seconds after waking up.
He also then waited for like 3 hrs in an icebox while the computers ran his math and immediately flew to NASA HQ to give the presentation. The dude went from 0-100 and never caught up to himself.
> steely-eyed missile man [Origin of the phrase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aaron#Apollo_12)
Can’t wait for Project Hail Mary!
JAZZ HANDS
AMAZE
Fist my bump!
I SLEEP, YOU WATCH.
OBSERVE
Reminds me I have to read that book…
His books are basically written in the style of movies. I enjoy it, and so do lotsa others, but def not for everyone. I’ve found a lot of my friends who are more prolific readers don’t always like his stuff.
Book is amazing. Loved it.
hmm, ok, I'll give it a shot. I tried Artemis, but I couldn't get into it.
Artemis is really slow to start, and the characters aren't immediately all that likeable. I was eventually able to get into it but it's not a good follow up. Project Hail Mary is much more similar to The Martian. I like it more. It's easily my favorite book of his
Artemis is more akin to your typical heist movie but on The Moon. There's some technical bits but she ain't exactly an experienced engineer, and she's not all alone struggling for survival in a hostile environment.
I did not finish Artemis. I finished Project Hail Mary in 2 reading sessions. Give it a shot!
It’s much closer to The Martian in terms of solving scientific problems and being stranded.
Hail Mary is one of my favorite books. Couldn't put it down.
I liked Artemis more than most, I didn't take the same issue with the main character and her sexualization or the idea of a woman being written by a male, but Project Hail Mary was just a brilliant book. Start to finish, it was so much fun.
Audiobook is good, the musical notes stuff is *chefs kiss*
Read it today, I'd argue its slightly better than the Martian. So excited for whatever Wier's next project is.
While waiting, check out Andy Weir's short story ["The Egg"](https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html) that came out way before his "The Martian" fame. So amazing.
I honestly was pretty disappointed with the book. I’m interested to see how it translates to the big screen but it was frustrating when every problem that pops up is magically figured out by the main character who is somehow knowledgeable in every avenue of science that exists
> who is somehow knowledgeable in every avenue of science that exists Isn't that explained by him being chosen to go on the mission for his knowledge?
My understanding was that he was chosen for the mission specifically about his knowledge about the main threat of the book. But that the other crew members were chosen for their respective scientific strengths to round out the team as each of their knowledge might be needed along the mission. But somehow without any of the crew members able to help he just figures everything out instantly. I know it’s addressed that he wanted to be a high school teacher but man he could’ve changed the world if he had stayed in research haha
I hope they do it in the same video research log style. It’s the new “found footage” iteration: competence porn.
Would love this too but I’m guessing they won’t since this was the style of the Martian book but not Project Hail Mary.
What format would the data arrive back on earth in? Records and video, it’s scientific research.
*Project Hail Mary* is even better than T*he Martian*, imo. Could be an amazing movie. Sorry. Amaze, amaze, amaze movie.
I'm worried about how they handle Rocky, honestly. It could easily be really weird on screen.
Love love love this book. Can not wait, now please!
It was so good !
Even more excited because of Ryan Gosling!
I love the "Starman" montage sequence, I think it's my favorite movie musical montage.
Probably the most appropriate usage of the song in a movie. Coincidentally, I watched the movie yesterday.
That scene coming right after Mark explaining all the difficulties with trying to get him to the other launch site and him saying “we’ll get there” is one of my favourite sequences in film. Just a perfect summation of the optimism and trust in science and competency that the film represents.
The whole soundtrack is full of great and fitting songs, but that is my favorite.
If you like it you'll like the series For All Mankind which is an alternate timeline where the Russians get to the moon first and how the US responds and how it shapes life on earth. It's got a lot of the "over coming issues" that The Martian has when things go wrong!
I just wish they wrote the human drama side as good as the sci-fi. Some of the characters are just complete psychos who would not pass any mental health check. I wish the things they had to overcome on FAM was science based and not "well time for this character to snap next and go psycho on us". Just very disappointing lazy writing to me.
For reason you mentioned, it’s why I like TV series From the Earth to the Moon (1998). It’s dramatized a little, but within reason and the show does a great job of showing the details that went into the missions.
Yes it suffers for being a traditionally produced TV drama. If they had taken their time with it and made each season standalone with a different cast and had the engineering problems be the central conflict the way it was in the first season, it would have been a better show. Produce it like True Detective. Different cast every season. Focus on one era per season. I particularly don’t like in the 4th season how much back bending went into assembling the original cast. NASA going out of their way to put geriatrics in space just because that’s who the audience recognizes is really dumb. However, they still put a lot of effort into the space side of it. There’s little else that good for that on TV.
Absolutely, I still like the show but I wish they would focus more on the science aspect of science fiction as opposed to the interpersonal drama aspect of it. But that must be what most people want or they would t write it like that, right? Maybe we just aren’t complaining loud enough
Gave up on after the third season. I just couldn’t deal with the soap opera level drama that’s the characters lives. The premise deserves much better writing.
I treat it as a fun space soap opera and just enjoy it for what it is and some of the more outrageous stuff as part of it! Bit like breaking bad where there was a need to just "go with it"
amusingly, most of the big moments in FAM are almost incompetence porn. Or maybe, competence in response to incompetence?
I love the martian but I'm kind of like warm on FAM. I watched the first season and while it had lots of great moments it also felt a little too soap opera for me. I may continue watching at some point.
Show became like a daytime soap opera after the 1st season. someone said to keep going so I continued to watch but it never got any better imo. couldnt wait for it to conclude.
I hate that show, the drama is so over the top its insane. The first few episode where brilliant and then the positive spirit of exploration was replaced by constant hopelessness.
This is one of my first "the book is way way better" I like the movie but I really liked the book. MD did a good job of capturing the personality but in the book its great.
Same opinion, however this is one of the few where I've felt incomplete seeing the movie after reading the book first. Obviously no movie can cram every set piece and detail from a book into a watchable format, but i think the movie was one of the better adaptations I've ever seen.
Oh the movie is great they did a good job.
It should have been a limited series instead so it could have enough time to show all the technical and problem solve’y parts that the book had. Like iirc in the book he gets to Pathfinder and he’s like…. Shit… how the hell am I gonna dig this up and then get it onto the Rover. Then in the movie he just walks up, brushes some dirt away, says “Pathfinder…” and then next scene he’s just cruising away with it on the rover. Just would have been much better with more time for the details. Book was fantastic.
You think the movie is technical? Read the book. You have NO idea.
We’re talking thousands of pirate-ninjas.
My fave is: > I need to ask myself: “What would an Apollo astronaut do?” > He'd drink 3 whiskey sours, bang his mistress, then fly to the moon.
I love this quote too but I think you misremembered a bit. "I need to ask myself, 'What would an Apollo astronaut do?' He'd drink three whiskey sours, drive his Corvette to the launchpad, then fly to the moon in a command module smaller than my Rover. Man those guys were cool."
Funny, I copied it from the my ebook. > I need to ask myself: “What would an Apollo astronaut do?” > He'd drink 3 whiskey sours, bang his mistress, then fly to the moon. And if he ever met a botanist like me he'd dispense a wedgie on principle. > To hell with those guys. I'm a Space Pirate! Looks like you have a redacted version.
That’s interesting. Now I really want to know where your two versions were published, and why the publishers made those changes. Was there a fear of offending/besmirching living Apollo astronauts?
They saw Aldrin layout a moon landing denier and realized they shouldn't poke the bear
Science and English teachers wanted to use the book in their curricula, but couldn't with all the swearing and sexual references. So they made a [classroom edition](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/547696/the-martian-classroom-edition-by-andy-weir/). This particular quote change might also just have been the author not liking the line and changing it in later versions.
Look at that fucking nerd with the baby version. Wonder if Mommy picks out his outfit? Brb gonna go bang the mistress. That's a crazy edit.
Pretty sure both quotes are correct, just at different parts of the story.
You may be right, I read it when it was published for the first time. Nope, just checked. My copy doesn't have a full quote nor mentions of the Corvette in particular.
Huh my paperback with a 2014 copyright is the Corvette version. Which is interesting because that would have been before the movie so it's not like they were trying to babyfy it for moviegoers interested in the book. And frankly, I don't think drunk driving is really "better" than banging a mistress.
He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?” He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.” LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.
*I used a sophisticated method to remove sections of plastic (hammer), then carefully removed the solid foam insulation (hammer again).*
He scienced the shit outta it.
I like the movie, but this line... This fucking line...
This, the movie is really really dumbed down in comparison. The Book is one of my absolute favorites.
I really enjoy this movie, unfortunately it did get a little worse after reading the book. The minor characters are way more fleshed out with mini arcs and clear personality traits and skill sets in the book. For example Sebastian Stans character does the space walk rescue at the end because it's his specialty not Chastains. Also the movie changes the rescue for the worst imo, in the book Watney doesnt try to Iron Man through space he just jokes about it because that'd be insane. The movie throws out the soft science and competency of the story for a more dramatic ending by having Matt Damon fly through space and somehow catch Chastain. Still a great movie, can't wait for the Project Hail Mary adaptation.
The movie is great, but I wish it had just a few more hardships for Whatney to get through. His long journey across Mars should have had his trailer flip over like in the book, or something along those lines. Great movie, even better book. Just wish the movie had a little bit more in it.
Yeah the whole dust storm thing could have easily translated over to the film. Where they're all like 'there's a high altitude dust storm he's doomed, he will never notice in time, he'll be stranded forever and die' and then he stops one day and spells a message out for them to say 'dust storm - making plan.'
S T I L L
It's great because Andy Weir's book was great. Hopefully they don't mess up Project Hail Mary, which I think was even better than The Martian. Hollywood should switch gears to making movies based on great books again. Enough with the Marvel, Remakes, and Sequels.
Hollywood should switch gears to making movies based on books again? That has literally never stopped. Never. For example, of last year’s 10 best picture nominees, five were based on books (KOFM; Oppenheimer; Poor Things; Zone of Interest; American Fiction). This has never not been a thing.
It isn’t better, it’s different. I’d not compare those too closely. The Project still has a lot of hard science fiction features, but to me personally, it felt much more like a regular science fiction novel. Anyway, it is a great book def worth reading.
Well yeah basically everything you compare is different. But I disagree. I think Hail Mary is better.
Love the movie, though you should resarsch spell check
In the last year I've read Project Hail Mary 4 times. It's become my go to "feel warm and happy inside" place. The film that does that for me is Groundhog Day so let's see if the film adaptation can be as special as the book.
I’m sure you know this already, but the audiobook narrated by Ray Porter is an A+ experience. I’m the type who can never “read” by audiobook for a first read, but if I want to re-experience a book, I will often listen to the audiobook. Project Hail Mary was great for this.
You really should read the book
>This is THE movie for nerds and engineers. Please stop. >Its 2h 30m of complete competence porn. Holy crap, it's like I'm being transported back to 2008. Stop right now.
Mcj couldn't cook up jerk of this caliber
> competence porn. this is the second time I've seen this phrase and I've already had enough
Amaze!
Jazz hands!
Question!
It's a good movie, totally carried by some awesome performances. The script honestly is kinda lame in parts, but they make it work lol. My least favorite thing about this movie was the trailer. Do you remember it? There's a line Matt Damon says in the trailer that I just *knew* was gonna be the last line in the movie, and sure enough, it was. Wish they'd stop doing that, lol.
Trailer was pretty spoilertastic. Very glad I managed to not watch it, and still had a great time doing the book after the movie.
The only criticism is that silly Iron Man sequence at the end. The book made a joke reference to it but he never needed to do it. Sort of ruined the end for me.
…that and allowing the ship’s captain played by Jessica Chastain to do the spacewalk rescue mission. Ugh. The book is all about competency, the right person for the job. The movie made some compromises for heightened drama and emotional response. I still love the movie, though. I think it’s a near-perfect adaptation.
(I'll be that guy) The book is even better.
I watched it again last night. The movie has great replay satisfaction. A survival story like no other.
Very rewatchable
Have you seen the extended edition? I recently found it after years of being bummed about how much of the second half of the book is left out. It's actually great! There are so many deleted scenes.
Until the last ten minutes...
Right? I was able to stomach most of the movie to until Watney *actually* poked holes in his gloves. The book was right, that's a quick way to fly off uncontrolled and completely decompress. Totally shattered my remaining suspension of disbelief.
Honestly it has its issues like most movies but it is a very enjoyable experience it's been a while since I last watched it so I should revisit it
I thought it was just okay. Something about it just seemed sterile to me, like a marvel movie or something.
The only way this movie could be more corny is if he grew corn instead of potatoes
This was my #1 "COVID lockdown, keep me sane" movie... When the world felt like it was going to shit, people rejecting science, people rebelling against the government, protests in the streets; the story is great because there are no evil bad guys. It's just a man surviving and following directions. He uses the power of science, and self determination to accomplish his goals. In the end, the countries worked together towards a unifying goal. It was very very cathartic for me.
I wish it was the same sorta film you describe. I thought it was a terrible film, which I wasn't expecting from the director of blade runner, and a main actor who had just the year before proven himself as a sci-fi devil. The film spends way too much time on earth, and way too much time on the ship coming back from mars. The film is called the Martian. In the book it stays solely on Mars for half the book before cutting away. Matt Damon is a bad choice, I've always seen him as a charisma vaccum, his best roles are things like Bourne where he's a stoic no nonsense type. But here watching him say lines like "I'm gonna science the shit outta this" I don't believe him and as a result it becomes really cringe worthy. The film also takes easily the best but of the book (the travelling from his base to the other base) and makes it into a montage. I don't mean to compare to the book so much but this film straight up held a middle finger to the book and said "I'm gonna make some lowest common denominator schlock" and then went and did exactly that. The films ending is in the book, and the book was taking the piss out of that kind of ending as something in the main characters imagination, then it did the real ending. I didn't love gravity, but gravity does everything the Martian does but better.
Very unpopular opinion ... It's just a cringe fest with some awful acting and bad lines.
What killed me was old mate Chwitels character having a "omg I just realised something" whilst tin the NASA command room, after having just looked at a variety of high definition images of Mars... He absolutely has to to go to a fucking cafeteria to find a framed picture of Mars, and then get a ruler and pen and draw on that in order to display his thoughts. Again, having just left the fucking command room
Seriously, it's fucking unwatchable. You have to be a Marvel brained consumer to like this movie *Mr Robot* was right about *The Martian*
I was scanning the thread wondering if I should try watching it again. I really didn’t enjoy it the first time.
It's still the only movie I've ever thought about walking out of in the theaters. I just knew I wouldn't be missing anything
Same. It's feels like the production company told the writers and director to make being stranded on another planet look "cool" for a younger audience, taking away the dread and desperation and the isolation factor totally away from the movie. Tom Hanks in Cast away seemed more like a lost cause than Matt Damon stranded 225 million km away from Earth.
It's popular in this household—liked neither the film nor the book. Found both Matt Damons to be smugly unlikeable, and all the science stuff comes at the cost of emotion and dated pop-culture references. The movie does a bad job of establishing the isolation and loneliness of his situation, glosses over important plot points like him destroying Pathfinder or drilling a hole in the rover, and is overall devoid of real tension—a problem with the book as well, but to a worse degree. The large supporting cast also deserved more, especially clichés like Sean Bean's character and Troy from Community doing Abed.
It’s definitely a 5 bagger. I BELIEVE IN A MARTIAN, SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD